Before I Saw You

Starred review from June 18, 2018
Sorrells (Then Sings My Soul) tells the faith-filled tale of a pregnant mother surrounded by opioid addiction who finds hope in the goodness around her. In rural southern Illinois, waitress Jaycee Givens is wracked with grief. Her infant sister has died of malnutrition, and her heroin-addicted mother has been sent to prison. Then Jaycee realizes she’s pregnant by her abusive on-and-off boyfriend. Luckily, she has friends to rely on: Sudie, her loyal elderly neighbor, who rescues injured animals, and Gabe, the sweet, handsome new guy in town, who frequently checks on her at the diner. Having been abandoned and abused, Jaycee takes Sudie’s lead and listens for the voice of God. In Sorrells’s steady hands, Jaycee’s pain is affecting but always tinged with hope. This fine novel is filled with believable, complex characters who face challenges with dignity, faith, and courage—and find no easy solutions. Readers will appreciate the uneasy marriage of tough reality and life-giving grace, and lose themselves in Sorrells’s understated but lyrical prose.